The global economy will continue to grow at around 3 per cent this year and next. Possibilities for boosting the economy through budgetary or monetary policy are limited, while political developments mean that effective economic policy is unlikely.

While there will be a devaluation of the Chinese renminbi, the dollar will also become stronger more generally in 2016, due in part to the Fed’s interest rate increases. The ECB is more likely to do the opposite, which will weaken the euro/dollar currency pair further still. Slightly higher capital market rates can be expected though.

Global growth holds up in 2016, but does not accelerate. With the US poised to hike interest rates, the rest of the world waits anxiously. Normalization of monetary policy poses economic risks, but so does keeping it too loose for too long.

Like the rest of the eurozone, the Dutch economy will grow faster in 2015 than it did in the year just past. But growth will remain low, and unemployment high. Low inflation puts the ECB under increasing pressure to start large scale quantitative easing.

In the Outlook publication, Rabobank presents her yearly economic predictions for the coming year. The macroeconomic ‘Outlook 2015’ is published alongside the Thematic booklet ‘Prosperity in the new economic reality’.